President Joan Romeo presided over the 13th annual California Bowling Writer’s annual meeting at the Radisson Ontario Airport hotel on June 10. The organization is small but mighty with an active agenda. Reports found CBW financially sound and extolled the virtues of their newsletter The InfoLink, which is mailed to membership four times a year; their thriving Phone Card charity that raised nearly $7,000 to send 685 phone cards to troops overseas and a successful Media & Publicity luncheon hosting 76 men, women and youth.

The most challenging item at the meeting was the legislation that proposed restructuring the board of directors. The membership approved the following amendments: Amendment No. 1:
The board would be reduced to a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and four Directors. In addition, jurisdictional boundaries for Director’s North and South were eliminated. This eliminated one Vice President (terming out in 2012) and the Sergeant at Arms (terming out at the end of her term in 2011.) Reason: The Board of Directors would be more balanced. Currently there are six line officers and only four directors.

Amendment No. 2: The President, with the approval of the elected Board of Directors, shall appoint two (2) Directors at Large with voice and vote to serve for a one year term.
Reason: As it currently stands, the full membership gets the opportunity to elect the line officers and four directors and all too often there may not be two viable candidates for each office so choice is limited further. In most cases, we elect a director because we believe they’ll be a good leader. This doesn’t necessarily mean they have the best skill set to assist in running the organization.

Elections brought back incumbents Barbara Metzinger of Carmichael, First Vice President; Donna Dillard of Pasadena, Secretary; Directors Jill Williamson of Pacoima and new to the board, Paula Vidad of Sun City.

Terming out will be Sgt-at-Arms Marian Mann of Daly City (2011) and Marianne Evans, 2nd Vice President, Simi Valley (2012.) Andrea Adamson was defeated in the plurality vote of Directors.

CBW Youth Liaison Debbie Haggerty spoke on the state of youth retention. Recently appointed to the USBC National Youth Committee, Haggerty said tournaments like Junior Gold are thriving with large numbers participating but the youth ranks are shrinking because of a lack of good Youth Coaches. The new Program Kids Bowl Free has been a smash with hundreds of kids taking advantage of bowling two games free every day all summer and it brings in the folks too.

Secretary Donna Dillard reported that CBW membership is at 93 and we picked up several new and member renewals during the weekend. The Email Connection operated by Mary Lynly keeps in touch with members and Mary says, “As a communication organization – we no longer remove members whose membership has expired. Only important timely information is sent via the Connection and our aim is keeping in touch.”

We still get comments on our California WBA display at the National Bowling Stadium and we clean and change out information twice a year. Thanks to NBS Manager Bob Thomas for accommodating the display in a great location – directly across from the elevator on the fourth floor!

President Romeo is encouraging reaching a wider range of people with our communication and the topic will be discussed at our Interim Meeting in November. Part of our communication is sending cards of Congratulations, Condolence, Sympathy Encouragement, etc. which is another way of keeping in touch. Marian Mann handles the task.

CBW Publicity
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